Updated 10:00 pm, Wednesday, September 1, 2004

The U.N. agency that controls trade in endangered species has halted all export of the caviar most favored by connoisseurs because of non-compliance with a conservation agreement that was signed in 2001 and took effect this year.

Russia and Azerbaijan are the particular countries that failed to attend an agency meeting in Geneva last month where they were to show proper compliance documentation. Because of the absence, CITES was unable to issue export quotas to any of the member countries.

As a result of the ban, the legal supply of Caspian caviar in the United States -- the osetra, beluga and sevruga that sells for up to $3,000 a pound -- is likely to dry up once the 2003 harvest is consumed. Prices are already rising.

"I would really be worried if there were something I could do about it," said Sherrow, who imports Caspian caviar from an Iranian company. "I have to rely on the Iranians to plead their case. ... We'll hunker down and wait for the storm to pass."

International trade in the world's 20-odd varieties of sturgeon has been regulated by CITES since 1998, after a drastic rise in poaching. Last year, Iran, Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan exported 150 tons of beluga, osetra and sevruga caviar from the Caspian.

The agency has also frozen much smaller exports of those species from the Black Sea; of Amur River sturgeon from China and Russia; of Canadian sales of four Great Lakes varieties to the United States; and even of American exports of paddlefish roe to Japan.

The agreement does not affect the international trade in caviar taken from farmed sturgeon, a tiny but fast-growing industry in California, Idaho, France and Italy. Nor does it affect domestic markets, including that in Russia, where most illegal caviar is consumed.

Exporters cannot legally ship caviar without a permit from the agency. In the United States, the Customs Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service check incoming shipments for the necessary export permits and other paperwork.

Officials of the U.N. agency do not believe that there is much illegal sturgeon fishing by Iran, the other major exporter of Caspian caviar, but as a signer of the 2001 agreement, it is subject to the ban.

Armstrong said the illegal trade in Russia may be so great that there might not be any legal quotas issued in the foreseeable future if the total catch was counted accurately.

He also said the reasons for denying the export quotas outside the Caspian Sea varied. For the Great Lakes sturgeon, he said it was because the United States and Canada had failed to submit a joint management proposal.

All the high-quality fresh beluga, osetra and sevruga in importers' warehouses are from the 2003 catch. Fresh caviar, when properly cured and then shipped under refrigeration and stored at about 29 degrees Fahrenheit, has a shelf life of about 18 months, though retailers such as Seattle Caviar prefer to sell the product seasonally.

"There are nuances within the tin from spring harvest caviar to fall harvest caviar," Sherrow said.

Black-market caviar is available in this country, as well as caviar that may have been frozen or is two or even three years old.

Chefs say they will make do. "If we couldn't get imported caviar in the restaurant," said Jonathan Benno, the executive chef at Per Se in the Time Warner Center, "we'd probably use American farmed sturgeon caviar from California."

Some dealers are trying to be optimistic, saying sources, especially in Iran, expect the agency may soon allow exports of the 2004 catch, and that the delay is due mainly to bureaucratic problems in Russia. But Armstrong held out little hope for that.

Fishermen, traders and local officials say that in Russia and Kazakhstan, poaching, negligible during the Soviet period, has become a way of life in the past 15 years of economic upheaval and widespread corruption. Most estimate the illegal catch at many times the legal one.